The elementary school day was eerily quiet in Nevada. (Caucus day comes later.)
The polls are closed in Nevada's first presidential primary in decades — eerily quiet contests, with in-person turnout appearing slim and leading candidates choosing to stay elsewhere.
According to the Secretary of State, the provinces will report an initial set of votes and then continuously update their counts throughout the evening.
On the Republican side, the winner of Tuesday's vote will receive no delegates. These will go to the winner of the caucuses on Thursday.
Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, is the only Republican candidate who participated in the primary and is still in the race. Former President Donald J. Trump will participate in the caucus on Thursday and is saving his next stop in the state until then.
Some Republican voters struggled to keep up with the confusing dual-election system, which allowed them to participate in both the primaries and the caucuses. One voter showed up at a polling place in Las Vegas eager to vote for Mr. Trump, only to find the former president was not on the ballot.
“If it's not in there, I'm not going in,” Esther Sko said before getting back in her car and driving away.
Ms. Haley, who has not campaigned in Nevada and whose campaign said the process was 'rigged for Trump', attended fundraisers in California. She will hold a rally in Santa Monica, California, on Wednesday – a sign that she is looking forward to Super Tuesday, when Californians go to the polls.
President Biden entered the Democratic contest in Nevada, where he will almost certainly win as the incumbent president. He spent Tuesday in Washington, although he did appear in Nevada this weekend for a rally where he highlighted campaign promises he made to black and Latino Americans. On Monday, he visited members of an influential union in Nevada and drank boba tea in Las Vegas' Chinatown – all signs that he is aware that the various battleground states will be crucial in the fall.
Due to the split format on the Republican Party side and the allowing of early and mail-in voting in the new primaries, in-person voting appeared to be somewhat low on Tuesday. But turnout expectations are difficult to determine because this is the first year presidential primaries have taken place in Nevada since state lawmakers voted to require them in 2021 after decades of caucuses.
According to reports from the Nevada Secretary of State, more than 150,000 people cast ballots before the primary through in-person voting, absentee voting and voting by mail. More than 93,000 Democrats voted, compared to about 58,000 Republicans.